This afternoon the Baseball Writers Association of America got together to vote on various issues and the meeting produced a couple interesting pieces of news.
First and foremost they voted to expand the Cy Young ballot from three spots to five spots, which is no doubt in response to the uproar caused by two writers leaving Chris Carpenter off their ballots last month. My suggestion is that the change should forever be known as the Keith Law Law.
And after adding several internet-based writers last year for the first time, the BBWAA will now open its doors for Sean Forman. You may not recognize that name, but Forman is the man behind the most indespensible, invaluable baseball website in the world (besides this one, of course): Baseball-Reference.com. He’s done a tremendous amount of work to advance both the history of baseball and the availability of statistics, and also happens to be one hell of a nice guy.

Blue Jays closer Roberto Osuna was arrested in Toronto back on May 8 on charges of assault against a woman and he has been on MLB’s administrative leave list ever since — that leave having been extended twice already.

Canadian authorities aren’t revealing any details about the case so as to protect the identity of the accuser and it’s unclear where MLB’s investigation into the matter stands at this point, but Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports opens his latest column with this note …

Toronto Blue Jays star closer Roberto Osuna’s domestic issue is said by people familiar with the case to be serious and involve allegations of a physical nature, which would draw a significant ban.

Heyman notes that Major League Baseball handed 15-game suspensions to Jeurys Familia and Steven Wright for domestic assault cases where there was no physical abuse — or none proven — and that Aroldis Chapman got 30 games after a police report revealed that he did get physical with the victim and also fired a gun.

It sounds like Osuna could be facing a suspension of at least 20-25 games, given the precedent. Again, though, we don’t have any actual details.

Tyler Clippard has been operating as Toronto’s primary ninth-inning man in Osuna’s absence.